Thursday, March 30, 2017

Accenturing the Po$itive

Applause App Quality Inc., a Framingham company that helps app makers, retailers, and other companies test their products, announced Wednesday it has raised $35 million in new funding.

The Series F financing round was led by Direct Equity Partners, an arm of Credit Suisse, and brings Applause’s total funding to $115 million. Applause said it would use the money to expand and improve its testing services, which include crowd-sourced feedback and user panels, as well as design, security, and usability reviews of websites and mobile applications.

Applause has offices in four other US cities, plus three in Europe, where in 2014 it acquired crowd-testing company Testhub, and employs about 300 workers. The company has a network of about 250,000 “as-needed” quality assurance testers in various countries.

Accenture, a multinational business consultancy based in Ireland, also contributed to the funding round. Applause said that, under a new alliance, it would provide testing services to Accenture clients. The two companies said the market for testing is growing as businesses increasingly create complex products that need to work on multiple platforms while remaining secure and reliable.

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